Index of Posts Defining Spiritual Abuse

How Can I Tell if my Church is Abusive?
(A review of how spiritual abuse and Robert Lifton’s model of thought reform manifest in churches and parachurch organizations)

SPIRITUAL ABUSE PROFILE
by Watchman Fellowship

Characteristics of Spiritual Abusers
(Information collected from authors on the subject of spiritual abuse)

Podcasts about Spiritual Abuse
(“Thatmom” Karen Campbell interviews Cindy Kunsman in a series of podcasts about spiritual abuse, thought reform and how to resist covert manipulation)

Understanding Cognitive Dissonance
(The collection of a series of blog posts about how thought conversion works and how subtle pressures affect us from the Under Much Grace Blog)

Bounded Choice
(Systems of control that appear as though an individual has options of choice but are bound to a limited number of "givens" that are determined by the group; expands upon the concept of cognitive dissonance)

New Cults of Biblical Christianity: Theological Innovations in the Postmodern Age
(Article published in June and July 2004 issues of Christian Culture)

The Spiritual Abuse Network’s Questionaire
(Questions To Help Identify Specific Areas of Spiritual Abuse, Deception, and Fraud from a Questionaire by Chris Lawson)

Is Spiritual Abuse Biblical?
(A display of collected references discussing spiritual abuse)

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES on the Under Much Grace blog

• A Synopsis of Terminology Pertaining to Cults and Spiritual Abuse (A comparison of the many definitions of spiritual abuse and cults, including aberrant behavior within Biblical Christian Churches.)
• Distinguishing Doctrine From Behavior: What Makes a Cult a Cult? (More discussion of the comparison of spiritual abuse and thought reform, particularly within Christian Churches.)
• Biblical Analysis of Scriptures Pertaining to Spiritual Abusers (A review of Scriptures that concern false prophets/teachers/Pharisees and how this relates to Dr. Walter Martin’s statement that Christians must produce good fruit concerning not only doctrine but the fruit of the life lived.)
• Why Doctrinal Statements Tell You Nothing of the Unwritten Rules of a Manipulative Group (Discussion of how manipulative religious groups maintain two sets of beliefs and rules, including those that are not written and are reinforced subjectively.)
• The Elements of Spiritual Abuse (A series of posts that examine each element of spiritual abuse as defined by Henke and the “Weapons of Influence” defined by Cialdini)
• The Experience of Realizing Spiritual Abuse (What it feels like and what others have experienced when they first began to realize that they were being spiritually abused.)
• Post Cult Trauma Syndrome (Symptoms and dilemmas experienced by those who emerge from spiritual abuse)
• The Heresy of Mind Control (A must-read downloadable book from Steven Martin of Wellspring)
• Why It's So Hard to Leave An Abusive Situation
• Antiquated Ideas About Cults
• Differentiating Between Cult, Cultic and Spiritual Abuse
• Cult Leaders and Con Artists

Finding Help and Healing

• Finding an Exit Counselor and Resources for Healing
• Journey Out of Shame (List of Resources)
• Steve Hassan's Testimony (How to talk to people in cults)

Examples of Manipulative Techniques

• The Term “Biblical” Becomes a Thought-Stopping Cliché? (How loaded language and thought reform takes place in Biblical Christian Churches)
• Loading the Language (Posts discussing the manipulation of language within spiritual abuse)
• Describing Methods of Manipulation (Dissembling and controlling the disclosure of information in order to draw in the unsuspecting – the subtle version of the “bait and switch,” Examples pulled from the True Woman Conference ’08 and from information from a survivor of a Bible-based religious group.)
• Beware the Love Bomb
• What’s in a Uniform?
• What is Damage Control?
• Conference Survival Skills

Conformity Studies (Video Documentaries)

• Bad Apples or Bad Barrels: Video Overviews of Zimbardo’s Lucifer Effect (Philip Zimbardo lectures on how systems of control and social pressure promote evil behavior and encourages individuals to become “everyday heroes” in the face of social and environmental pressures.)
• The Wave (A video that depicts the disturbingly true story of a classroom experiment in a history class in a California high school. The teacher sought to demonstrate to the students how German citizens so readily accepted the Third Reich to his class by exposing them to some of the behavioral techniques used.)
• Stanford Prison Experiment (The Hierarchy Effect?) (How an investigative study produced disturbing behaviors among a group of students at Stanford University)
• The Milgram Study (Study evaluating willingness of subjects to follow instructions given by a perceived authority figure)
• Asch Conformity Study (Study evaluating how subjects respond to social influence and popular opinion as a force that powerfully affects perception)
• The Power of the Situation (A documentary reviewing conformity studies and the powerful effect that social pressures, authority figures and circumstances pose upon individuals)
• Be Heroic! (About Zimbardo’s Hero Project campaign to teach people to be everyday heroes and resist situational influences.)